Passive Solar Stages a Comeback

by Harris Hyman
I look at solar-heated buildings as belonging
to several "generations," or design
eras. The first-generation buildings were
outright experiments conducted prior to
1974: the Thomaston Solaris system, the
Trombe-Michel house, the four Hottle
systems developed by the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, and similar projects.
The second generation began after the
OPEC meeting of 1973 and attracted
serious adherents who sat in the gas lines
of 1974 thinking things over. (I was one of
them.) Second-generation buildings were
serious efforts at doing something to help
with a worldwide energy crisis.
The buildings constructed during this
time were a wonderful combination of
folk art and heavy science, often in the
same building. People such as Doug Balcomb,
with his